Gear Failure

[Roger]

Yesterday after having my plane sit for a month without flying (due to the terrible weather in the North East) I finally got a break. If has been it the hanger (non-heated) since it came through its annual a month ago, which included 3 gears swings.

I preheated the hanger for 2 hours with all doors open, plus preheated the engines with the block heater, and departed in 10f temps.

After takeoff and "gear up" the gear doors would not close, and after a minute or so it popped the gear circuit breaker. I reset the breaker and recycled the gear down. No prob, gear down, doors closed.

Cycled them up, no problem, and doors closed, but the in transit light flickered for a couple of minutes, then went out.

Flew to my dest (an hour) and cycled the gear. Nothing ! No popped breaker, not noises, no gear no doors. Popped the breaker manually and reset, nothing. Master off, master on, cycle the handle. Nothing.

Put the gear handle in the down position, reached down and extended the hand pump, pulled it up 1/4" and it snapped out of my hand back down, and gear immediately extended, and doors closed.

I forgot to mention the part of me overflying the airport trying to decide if it would be better to belly in on the ice covered runway, or the hard paced snow between the runway and the taxiway.

So the question is, what do the doors not closing on the up cycle have to do with the gear not coming down until I gave a slight uplift to the manual pump handle?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. 337H - 1980

tks/Roger